Garden hoses made of various forms of rubber and plastic are generally provided with male and female end couplings by which the hoses are connected to one another, to faucets or spigots supplying liquid thereto, and to nozzles, sprinklers, etc. for dispensing the liquid. On currently marketed hoses such couplings are permanently affixed to the hose ends during production of the hose assembly and commonly comprise threaded male and female couplers made of brass and include a ferrule placed over the outer end of the hose. A cylindrical tail piece of brass is introduced into the hose end and permanently expanded outwardly to urge the hose into liquid-tight engagement with the ferrule. These threaded male and female couplings may also be formed of plastic. In such couplings, a plastic cylindrical tail piece is inserted into the hose end and a clamp member, generally of brass, surrounds the external periphery of the hose and is crimped inwardly after being placed around the hose, to urge the hose into liquid-tight engagement with the tail piece.
The couplings have heretofore been fabricated either entirely of metal or entirely of plastic. However each of these has certain disadvantages. Thus, metallic couplings are costly to fabricate and assemble. Both the material itself and the forming process are expensive. In order to economically manufacture the metallic couplings, the couplings have been stamped from annealed brass stock.
To effectively reduce the cost of such couplings, it has been deemed desirable to produce a hose coupling utilizing a minimum of brass metal in the fabrication thereof.